Part 1: When to Use iPhoto Plus 4

Part 2: A Sample Scan with iPhoto Plus 4

Part 3: Taking the Tours and Viewing the Screenbook

Part 4: After the Scan: Saving, Printing, Re-Sizing

Part 5: Using the iPhoto Plus 4 Explorer

Part 6: Illustrated Examples of a Quick Card and Calendar Templates

Making a Card

Step One: We open iPhoto Plus 4 and click on the Quick Card icon found in the upper row of icons. From the Quick Card menu, click on the Greeting Card choice. If the Quick Card icon is not present along the top row, click the Quick Task icon on the left-hand side.

Step Two: The iPhoto Plus 4 Explorer will open and automatically take us to the directory where the greeting card templates are stored. Double-click on the one called WEDDING1.TPL. The template now appears on the iPhoto Plus 4 screen.

Step Three: Click in the center of the heart-shaped window where the picture of the couple appears. The photo will now be surrounded by a dotted-line "mask" (a selected area). Click on the replace photo icon that appears in the lower-center of the image. A menu will appear with options for replacing the template image with one of our own.

Step Four: We can use any of the methods to bring in an image. Click on Open From File will open the iPhoto Plus 4 Explorer again and show us more example pictures. We could then move to a folder where our own personal images are stored and choose one. If a picture is ready in the scanner, we could click on the Scan option and scan our image into our card. (For help on scanning, or using the iPhoto Plus 4 Explorer, consult parts 2 and 5 of this tutorial.)

Step Five: After we choose or scan our picture, the above window appears and instructs us to choose how to best fit our picture into the heart-shaped window. We can fit the picture by width and height, by width, by height or we can keep the original size. Which choice we need really depends on the dimensions of our original picture, although the first choice, fit by width and height, usually fits most images pretty well. Once we have our picture in the heart-shaped window, we can use the hand icon to click and drag the picture to further adjust its position.

Step Six: With our new image in place, it is now time to change the text on the card. To change the text, we move the cursor over the text until it changes into a hand pointing up at the text. Clicking the text, three things appear: a mask surrounding the piece of text, an attribute window and a text icon in the lower-center of the text.

Step Seven: The attribute window above allows us to change the font, size and color of our text. To change the actual text message, we need to click on the text icon that appeared in the lower-center of the line of text. Clicking the text icon displays the following text attribute window.

Step Eight: In the text attribute window, we can still change the font, size, color, plus add shadow and type new text in the center area. An example of our new text will be displayed in the lower box. Once the new text is typed, click the OK button to change it on the card. Repeat steps six through eight until all of the text is changed for our new card. If any text needs to be moved to a new location on the card, click on it once with the hand icon until the dotted-line mask surrounds it, then move the cursor over it until it becomes a hand over a four-pointed arrow. Hold down the mouse button and drag the text to its new position.